Riding Man author Mark Gardiner provides insight into motorcycle racing, history, and industry news. A focus on road racing is to be expected from an ex-Isle of Man TT racer but Backmarker also covers everything from flat track to electric bikes.

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Thursday, April 7, 2016

Last really hot millennial girl picks up motorcycle sponsorship

Kortnee Davischeff, 28, of Lee’s Summit MO recently
announced that she’ll launch her “Bikerista” blog, Instagram account, and
YouTube channel later this month. That means that last really hot millennial
girl without a moto-blog in America has now turned motorcycle riding into her career, too.

We suggested that she might want to attend something like a Total Control course before taking her licensing test, but she doesn’t expect to have any trouble passing. “I’ve always just been lucky with tests,” she said. “Maybe it’s because I’m an Aries.”

This presumably also means that the motorcycle industry will
have to turn to some other demographic for future growth because, as one major manufacturer's incoming Marketing Director recently told Backmarker, “Most of
the growth in heavyweight motorcycle sales since the recession of ’08 has
actually been sales of bikes to hot millennial women who’ve started riding in
order to generate photo ops for their Instagram accounts.”

"We thought if we sponsored a few hot millennial girl riders, they'd get out there on social media and encourage less-hot women to ride too," the marketing maven went on to elaborate. "That hasn't really happened, but it wasn't a complete waste of marketing budget, because it turns out there are tens of thousands of other hot girls who want their own slice of that Instagram pie. 'Social media vixens' actually accounted for as many new heavyweight American cruiser sales as 'Frustrated white Republicans' last year. We'd be totally bummed to learn that the Social media vixen market has peaked, but thanks to Donald Trump there's a whole new crop of Frustrated white Republicans to slow our long decline."

So, how did the world discover the newest and (some would
say, thankfully the final) hipster/biker/doll?

“I’ve been working at Starbucks and apprenticing as a tattoo
artist,” Ms. Davischeff told us. “But now that hipsters are calling them ‘me-toos’
instead of tattoos, I can read the writing on the Facebook wall. Of course, I’ve
thought about becoming a sponsored biker-babe/Instagrammer, but I thought that market was saturated too.

Mr. Chaps was at a meeting with his ad agency, Lowbrow Marketing,
where they were presenting ideas for a new line of deerskin lady-biker wear
called TanLines™.

“We always meet at Starbucks, because the agency doesn’t
actually have an office,” Chaps said. “The guys were telling me that I could
save a ton of money on advertising by relying on social media. They said all I
needed was a hot millennial girl to blog and post selfies. I was, like, ‘Where
will I find a hot girl who rides? They’re all already sponsored by other
companies?’ and they were, like, ‘There’s one there.’”

Chaps immediately offered the gig to the barista that the ad
flunky had pointed out. Kortnee was skeptical at first, not least because she’d
never actually ridden a motorcycle.

"I'm kind of an old-fashioned girl," Ms. Davischeff told us, as she recounted her discovery. "I was, like, do you realize I don't even have a Snapchat profile?”

“My boyfriend has a Triumph,” she said. “At first, I thought they were dangerous, but he’s going to show me how to do it, so I’ll be fine.”

We asked her about any special training she’s undertaken for
her new lifestyle/career, like, maybe doing a track day with Melissa Paris or
Elena Myers.

“Who are they?” she asked, before adding, “but don’t worry,
I am getting a lot of training."

She assured us, for example, that she's going to do all her own web maintenance. "I’m going through all the how-to-use-Hootsuite
tutorials right now.”

Ms. Davischeff worked with Dorian Hardcastle, the Lowbrow’s Creative
Director, to choose a motorcycle brand for her sponsored blog. “We sent out a
proposal to all the major OEMs,” Hardcastle told us. “We expected it to be
Harley, or Triumph, but in the end BMW made the best offer, so she’ll ride an
RNineT. Our first YouTube video will be called ‘Bikerista Unchained’, ‘cause it’s
a shaft-drive.”

We asked Kortnee if all her gear was sponsored, and she told
us, “Oh no. I had to buy my own iPhone6.” When we explained that we meant it
more as in, had she picked up a helmet sponsor, and whether she’d wear a
full-face lid.

“I don’t want a face helmet, I want a crash helmet,” she
said. “We haven’t done a helmet deal yet, but I know I want one that’s
metal-flake.”

“We would have filmed ‘Babe Unchained’ as a ride to Austin,”
Mr. Hardcastle told us, “but all the good videographers were already booked. YouTube's gonna' have to install a few new towers in the old server farm when the next wave of hot-millennials-in-selvedge gets posted.”

What about just going down to ride a few classic hill
country roads, eat some BBQ, and catch the MotoGP race?

“No, I could Instagram it and shit,” she said. “But without
the Vines, there’s no point in riding.”

In theory they could, Mike. But since 'hotness' outweighs 'bike cred' 100:1 (even in motorcycle-industry) marketers' minds, it's much more efficient to gather a group of the hottest possible girls then look within that group for one with any motorcycle connection at all, and build on that. If you search among girls who actually have motorcycle chops, few of them are hot enough to sustain a big Instagram following. Clear?

Embarrassed? I don't know who you are; I assume if you're embarrassed, it's because you're a hot millennial girl with a motorcycle blog. For the record, Michele, I'm sure some of the hot millennial girls with moto-blogs have real motorcycle chops, and insights worth sharing. My point in writing this is, when *so*many*/*most* of the millennial girls getting support from within the motorcycle industry are scantily-clad "10"s, it's clear that the newly-feminist (post-feminist?) motorcycle industry has simply replaced the old misogyny with a newer, subtler prejudice that I have not heard named; I call it 'lookism'. Honestly, if I was a woman, I think this would piss me off even more. Quite a few women who *do* have serious motorcycle chops and who've worked in the moto industry in various capacities have privately contacted me to say, "Fuck yeah".

Even if--especially if--you're a novice, welcome. Just write or tweet or 'gram or whatever you're going to do from the perspective of who you really are.

Nicely done Mr. Gardner...it's a fascinating world we live in. Will never forget carrying your broken ass off the race track at Philip Island, watching you get your leathers cut off, and heading home while you were in hospital. You are the real deal.